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Finally...

Ben27, 06.08.2014

So: this is a review coming from someone who grew up on Cubase VST 3.5 and has been with Steinberg since then.

Over the years, PT seems to have gone from an exclusive club that involved Digidesign interfaces and Apple-only hardware, to something at comes bundled free with an entry-level soundcard. The latest version seems quite happy on a myriad of hardware, so I figured it was about time to try it out.

Why the switch? As I've become more involved in professional music production, I've used external studios more and more: and they all run Pro Tools. Not Reaper, not Logic, certainly not Live, Cubase or Sonar, but Pro Tools. I was fed up of having to read up which key commands are used to split audio, fed up of not understanding why recording over the top of something didn't just create a new layer, why selecting audio was a PITA... and the only way to learn something is to use it. Hence the purchase...

My PC is a few years old i5 3.3GHz with 8Gb of RAM and a bunch of external hard-drives. I run Windows 7 64bit and have an Aurora 16 interface over USB. PT runs with little to no effort clocking ~6ms latency at 48kHz.

So. The Good: 1) It's Pro Tools. Learn it. No more hassles with OMF files, no more interchange issues, no more questions about "what's that you're using", and you have the confidence to hire any studio and know how to use the system without a crib-sheet. 2) It takes you a while to get your head around the workflow, but then you realise it's more flexible than (say) Cubase in many ways. 3) Shortcuts, shortcuts and more shortcuts. Editing becomes very quick when you realise you can use a few keyboard presses to accomplish what was a click and drag operation elsewhere...

The bad: 1) The single biggest thing I can think of for someone coming to PT from any other DAW is THINK TAPE. In every other DAW, if you record over something and then delete it, the thing you recorded over is still there. In PT, it's not. Why? Because that's not what would happen with tape. The audio is technically still there, but it's no-longer in the channel. Get your head around this, and half the battle is won. 2) Comping with playlists still leaves a lot to be desired. 3) AAX. Oooooh, let's change the plugin specification shall we? In the beginning, there was VST, and developers made plugins that worked for it. Then PT came along with TDM and RTAS and the same developers adapted the plugins to work with that too. Now Avid have ditched TDM and RTAS, in favour of the new AAX format - which means developers have to re-build their plugins again. The bigger/better developers (Waves, Native Instruments) - not a problem. Some smaller ones (Novation, Korg), can't be bothered. Ohmforce haven't even acknowledged AAX, it seems, and since we're now into August (traditionally French holiday season) I doubt we'll see any change from them until spring next year. So: buyer beware... 4) Avid software with non-Avid hardware on a non-Mac will always throw up a few quirks. Mine is that PT can't change my Aurora's sample rate without crashing, so I have to set it before opening up a project... 5) Yes, you have Pro Tools, but it's not Pro Tools HD - so you don't get some of the fancy automation functions, or the gain reduction meters in the mixer. I don't see it as a big deal, but it's a shame that Avid feel the need to put it software restrictions, when they're already restricting it with HD's hardware requirements... 6) Pro Tools I'm likening to the old adage of a BMW, where the only thing you got as standard was the steering wheel. You suddenly take for granted the bundled Variaudio pitch correction and convolution reverbs with Cubase, when you compare them to the price of Melodyne and Altiverb... I'm not suggesting that Melodyne and Altiverb are not worth the price, but the cost of not only the DAW, but then additional plugins to make up the shortfall in whatever you're used to, can be prohibitive.

Adding up pros/cons, you'd think there's no way you should be buying PT11. In fact, I can't recommend it enough: yes it's expensive, yes it's complicated, but get your head around it and you'll never feel like using anything else.

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The best DAW for post production!

Nycollas, 18.07.2018

PT12 is just the best DAW for post production, mixing, editing and anything you want to do that doens't involve MIDI!! Its just a pain in the ass doing midi with PT, but nothing is perfect. Much better when you have a MAC, its not the best DAW for windows.. sorry to say.. many shortcuts dont work like in mac (CTRL= doenst work every time in Win8.. i need to do ALT= and after try again CTRL= anyway...), a lot of crashes in windows.. it closes and doesnt open until you restart.. impossible to change buffer size without quitting PT.. But with my macbook pro it runs perfectly!! If you are a win user its better to try it before buying.. maybe cubase will do the job faster..

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